BrainStuff Classics: Does Milk Really Make Mucus Worse?

There's a millennia-old idea that milk causes mucus production, and therefore that you should avoid milk if you're sick. Learn the truth in this classic episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://health.howstuffworks.com/diseases-conditions/respiratory/milk-and-mucus-myth-busted.htm

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio.
Hey brain Stuff. I'm Lauren Wogelbaum, and this is another
classic episode of the podcast. In this one, we get
to the bottom of a much repeated but completely untrue
a myth that consuming dairy products increases your mucus production.

(00:23):
Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum. Here, medical myths are stubborn.
Going back to ancient China, texts associated the consumption of
milk with a thickening of phlegm, and twelfth century Jewish
physician Moses Maimonds wrote in his Treatise on Asthma that
milk could cause quote a stuffing in the head that
exacerbated symptoms of asthma. Eight hundred years later, Dr Spock,

(00:45):
a twentieth century American pediatrician who wrote a popular book
about baby care, directed parents to limit dairy while babies
were sick, especially with upper respiratory infections. For new only
a thousand years, medical professionals have been telling us to
lay off the dairy or face the mucus consequences. But
is it true. A review of the literature published in
September eighteen in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood

(01:09):
concludes that there is virtually no connection between dairy products
and upper respiratory mucus, and that the myth might actually
be preventing children with conditions like asthma, cystic fibrosis, or
even the common cold from getting enough nutrients like calcium.
According to the review, studies dating back to have indicated
that there's no link between milk and phlegm, but the

(01:30):
myth is pervasive. A two thousand three study in the
journal Appetite asked three hundred and forty five random Australian
shoppers whether they thought milk causes mucus. Of the hundred
and eleven shoppers who drank whole milk, almost half of
them were of the opinion that it did, but only
of the one reduced fat milk drinkers so that they
believed milk caused mucus. The difference in perception might have

(01:53):
something to do with how milk feels in the mouth.
It is, after all, just droplets of fat suspended in water,
the current researchers wrote in their review. This could well
affect the sensory perception of milk mixed with saliva, both
in terms of its thickness coating the mouth, and the
after feel when small amounts of emulsion remain in the
mouth after swallowing. This may explain why so many people

(02:15):
think that more mucus is produced, when in fact it's
the aggregates of milk emulsion that they are aware of
lingering in the mouth after swallowing, so it's really just
a feeling, not a fact. And Furthermore, the researchers suggest
that since milk is a good source of calories and
minerals like calcium, the long standing cultural belief that milk
is bad for children with respiratory problems could mean kids

(02:36):
aren't getting the nutrients they need. This could lead children
growing up with weaker bones and shorter stature. Today's episode
is based on the article The Milk and Mucus Mint
Busted on houstuffworks dot com, written by Jesslon Shields. Brain
Stuff is production of Our Heart Radio in partnership with

(02:57):
houstuffworks dot Com, and it's produced by Tyler Clang. Four
more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

(03:17):
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